Wednesday, April 20, 2005

A visit to Joan

Six am call at Sony - Still on the same show (my boss told me I'm on through Friday, which is good. I like the shorter days - although there's not as much overtime, it's nice for now to have a life after work.

Tomorrow the shooting crew are using "Joan Of Arcadia"'s sets (we're shooting in what looks like a science classroom - I've never seen "Joan", so I have no idea what the name of the set is), so we had to go over there and get that ready.

The problem with walking on to someone else's stage is that you don't know where anything is - we had to turn on some overhead flourescents, and we had to actually go find the show's best boy (who was called in during his hiatus for this) so he could tell us how they were powered (from the greenbeds, and they came on when the stage power got turned on).

Plus, it kind of feels like snooping in someone else's house. When you come in on a working crew, someone shows you around first thing in the morning so you can find stuff.. there's no crew, it's just the empty sets.

The plaster work on "Joan's" sets is cracking and falling off the walls - I'm sure it cracks all the time (I guess plaster doesn't like heat from lights), but there's usually a crew to repair it - since the show's 'down', there's no one there, so there are piles of fallen plaster all over the place - when we left, there were two P.A.s sweeping it all up.

I hope it doesn't fall tomorrow while we're shooting and hit someone on the head.

"first unit" is the shooting crew - the crew that is assigned to the principal photograpy (that's the photography involving the main actors or storyline).

"Second unit" (sometimes called "B Roll", or "Goddammit, why can't those bastards bring their own lights instead of using ours") is usually assigned to shoot stuff that doesn't have the actors in it, or stuff that first unit doesn't have time to get - wide day exteriors, for example, or inserts such as a computer screen or a close up of a piece of paper.

About Me

I work in the film industry, as a crew member. I'm also an 'independent filmaker', but I make my money by busting my ass on big movies - many of which I've never seen.
The blog is now on Wordpress. You can reach it by clicking the "my webpage" link or the "Totally Unauthorized" link which will send you to the new blog.